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Pool Session – July 19
In today’s session we focused specifically on crafting the thrust in the stroke to assist your breathing.
To do this, you first needed to feel how the catch/pull, the torso rotation and the fully extended Skate Position work together to create the acceleration and lift on each stroke. This acceleration, or thrust, helps your head stay at the surface while breathing.
Non-Breathing Strokes
Activities
- Superman to Skate – Hold donut in extending lead arm, practice blending catch and extension together
- Skate to Skate – practice alternating from side to side, sliding lead arm ‘up the ladder’
Sensory Focal Points
Feel catch connected to and empowered by the torso rotation.
Feel catch/pull helping your extend the lead arm farther ahead.
Feel pressure on catch side as proportional to rate of extension on the other side.
Use the image of the ladder – hold one side (catch) to enable you to slide the other side up the ladder to the next hand hold, 3 inches farther (extension).
Feel the pressure build behind the catch arm.
Feel the wave of force that comes from that pressure behind the catch, as it transfers through the rotating torso and travels into the extending lead arm, enabling you to slide farther forward. The action can be strong, but it must always be smooth and gradually building (don’t be abrupt or yank on the water).
Then, notice the head position as you practice the thrust on each side. The head should slide along in neutral position, at the surface. Use the thrust of the catch and transfer to keep the head sliding at the surface. You are in control of where you direct your body using that thrust.
Breathing Strokes
I had you practice doing the same activities, with turning the head toward air.
- Skating – breathing every 4 strokes to left
- Skating – breathing every 4 strokes to right
- Skating – breathing every 3 strokes
Focal Points
- Head position is neutral before turning
- Turn head sooner (as soon as possible, don’t delay)
- Turn a bit more aggressively (without speed up the rest of the motion of the body)
- Take just a small, quick sip of air (a little is better than none)
The main point of the entire practice today was to experience using the thrust that comes from the synchronized catch-torso-extension to keep the head near the surface and make it easier to turn the face to air.
And, by the end, there you were, swimming a full length, head consistently at the surface, turning to breath and taking a little sip on every 3 strokes!
Practice Recommendation
You are signed up for the Virtual Swim Club which gives you some practices to follow for the month. I recommend adding a longer, open-ended test swim, or a fixed distance swim every 1 or 2 weeks to build specific muscle strength (like a tree sinking roots) around the skills you’ve got right now, setting the foundation for your next skill growth spurt (like spring time).
That might be a fixed distance like 500, 750, or 1000. You may aim to do it continuously, or break it into lengthy intervals, like 200, 250, or 300s repeats, with a fixed amount of rest.
Or you may swim it ‘open ended’ and start easy and while working to avoid it, swim up to a certain ‘failure of quality’ point and then swim past it just a little bit, trying to restore that quality and break through. Then make note of where you first failed, and then at what point you could no longer correct it.
As usual it looks like I replied in the wrong place, but you should get it any way. The woman I mentioned is named Deb Carver. I hope she follows through, she’s a member of the same club and it would be fun to have someone to practice with now and then.
Ack-I think I replied but missed the click on the submit button for my first submission. I mentioned the similarity between the movement pattern we worked on today and the movement pattern in climbing that involves pulling on one side with rotation and extension on the opposite side-not the same but quite similar.
Great lesson and I think that I’ll be working on the skate switch for a good bit, it was feeling quite good at the end of the lesson and I think it will really make a difference with ease of breathing over time. I may not be able to get up for a while with everything that is going on down here but I’ll pay for an additional four lessons and we can use them as time and situation allows.
Thanks and it’s a pleasure working with you,
Alex
Please excuse if this is the second post of this material, but I couldn’t find my first effort so I think something (probably due to me) happened.
Very nice workout today. Spent almost the entire time devoted to the specific skills we worked on yesterday-maintaining skate, coordinating the switch and using strong extension and keeping head level in the water while in skate. I did skate drills, then four strokes, then six and then switched to the snorkel. I was able to feel the skating sensation and my strokes per length dropped to 16, which wouldn’t happen if I was swimming normally and typically with the snorkel I was averaging 20-21 strokes per length so the extension was really making a difference. I then did 5×75 (breathing left, breathing right, breathing every three strokes)I finished with some very slow work with the snorkel trying to feel streamlined and balanced and this worked quite well and resulted in very low SPL (for me)
I was experimenting today and will use the information to develop a practice regime.
Hi Alex,
I will keep an eye out for Deb Carver. Hope she inquires! Thank you.
It was fun to make that breakthrough with you Thursday!!
16 SPL? That is wonderful. It was right there all along, just waiting for us to adjust the pieces into a more effective arrangement.
Alternating from breathing strokes to snorkel swimming will be helpful. You can test the effect of your new stroke control without the turning action and strengthen it, and then go back to the breathing strokes which depend on it. And, you can get in some longer swims, while your neural strength for holding the same pattern on breathing strokes gradually improves, eventually allowing you to go longer distances without the snorkel. It may not take so long.
The 5×75 plan is perfect, focusing on single sided breathing and then alternating.
Keep me posted!
Thanks Mat, I’m headed back to the pool this afternoon to test the format I’ve come up with for a more or less standard workout. I’ll keep you posted and when I see Deb I’ll encourage her to follow through.
Take Care
Thanks for the videos Mat, they certainly confirmed everything you mentioned during the lesson. I’ve been working hard on extending and holding skate until the opposite hand enters and also trying to feel the rotation of the body with the extension. I swam a 750 today and counted strokes about every four laps and was able to hold SPL at 18/19 pretty comfortably. I was however, only breathing left. When I breathe bilaterally and work on extension I’m pretty gassed at the end of a lap or two. I’d like to do another lesson in the nextr few weeks and focus on left breathing and balance when breathing left. The good news is that breathing right I feel like I could swim for a really long time, still not fast but very comfortable, in fact it feels so nice that it’s hard to make my self work on breathing left, but I can get past this feeling.
Alex
What’s your breathing pattern when only breathing on the right? 2-stroke, or 4-stroke, or 2-4-2-4?
We’ve talked about this, but there may be some subtle tension that builds up when your brain subconsciously anticipates turning to that unfavored side. This further exhausts you without showing any externally visible cause for the greater sense of effort on that side.
I’m most comfortable breathing every two strokes, but I can swim several laps breathing every four and should probably work a bit on 2-4-2-4 as it might help me relax when I go to breathing every three strokes. I may also need some more work on my neck, it just seems as though when I breathe right I’m balanced and the air is right there but when I breathe left I’m never sure how it’s going to go and breathing left goes better when I breathe every three strokes alternating sides. When I breathe every two to the left I lose all sorts of coordination, feel unbalanced and can hardly wait for the lap to be over. I’m off today but I’ll try the 2-4-2-4 pattern and see how that goes on both sides.
Alex
When you are swimming along with breathing on the right, maybe set a quota to turn toward the left just once, somewhere along each lap. Even if it goes poorly, you can recover on the next right side breath. But you’ll keep doing little things to get the brain more familiar with using that side, at least, occasionally.
Great suggestion Mat, that’s pretty much what I did tonight and it went quite well. I’m also doing 10-15 relaxed 25s breathing left only, the first ones are a little uncomfortable but they get better as I keep going. I think I just need more reps and a gradual introduction of left breathing. I’ve had such good fortune with the right breath that I’ve been pretty impatient for the left breath to just come right along and join the party and I think more patient and focused practice is going to be required before that happens. Breathing right with more complete extension feels great. Let me get a few weeks of that patient practice in and we can see about scheduling another lesson. Appreciate all the help.
Alex
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